


This Soft and Fluffy Thing Called

by LadyLondonderry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Cute Kids, Kid Fic, Liam Payne (mention) - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Neighbors, Niall Horan (mention) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 05:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15308481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLondonderry/pseuds/LadyLondonderry
Summary: Harry waits.He waits for his eleventh birthday. He waits with bated breath. He waits and waits and waits and watches the post for the letter - the letter that decides his fate - the letter from Hogwarts.or, the one where Harry was adopted as a baby, his downstairs neighbor is Louis, and he really should learn not to keep things bottled up.





	This Soft and Fluffy Thing Called

**Author's Note:**

> This is short and sweet and nothing much at all but a little slice of wizard life and anxiety
> 
>  
> 
> This is part of a Wordplay prompt challenge that a group of us are participating in for the prompt "Hope". To read the amazing fics that were written by the others on this prompt, [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wordplay_hope/works), and to see all fics written as part of the challenge, [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wordplay_fic_challenge/works) or find the masterpost for this year’s challenge here.

“We were coming home from the theatre— ”

“It was late and raining hard enough your mum kept slipping in the puddles— ”

“Only because your dad insisted on being the one to do the drying spell. He’s hopeless with those sorts of spells you know.”

“And we had just gotten to the front door of our building when we heard you.”

“Clear as day, we did! No way we could miss a cry like yours.”

“Loud as a siren, you were!”

“And dry as a bone. We found you under the awning of the flower shop next door. Someone had put a drying spell on you! Much better than your father’s.”

“And we took you home, of course!”

“You were made for us. Our perfect little Harry.”

—

Harry’s parents tell him that story all the time. They have since he was little (he’s not little now - he’s almost _eleven),_ and every time they do they give him a hug and a kiss and tell him that there’s no one in the world as special as him. It’s an ego boost, even though Harry is starting to realise that’s what many parents tell their children.

They live in a wizard flat in central London, the kind built in the sixties when it was all the rage for wizards to be living among muggles, disguising themselves in plain sight the trendy thing to do.

It is, of course, bigger on the inside. The building skinny enough to fit between two neighboring rowhouses built to plan, but wide enough on the inside for a (relatively) comfortable flat per level. Even so, the flats can’t be _huge._ The problem with bigger-on-the-inside spells is that one runs the problem of those spaces physically running into _other_ spaces that are _also_ bigger-on-the-inside, and so one will find themselves walking to what they think is the end of their living room, only to find themself in the kitchen of the flat across the way. It’s terribly tricky business, best left to be figured out by harried ministry officials with bowler hats and pea coats that morph into robes when no muggle eyes are watching.

That being said Harry has always thought their flat is the perfect size. It’s the perfect size because it has his room, a room for his mum and dad, and big living room for him to invite all of the Tomlinson kids from the next floor down to come play.

It’s always the best day ever when Louis comes over to play. Louis lives in the room just below Harry, and he knows because Louis told him the first day they met. He said, “You and I should be best friends because we _practically_ sleep in the same room,” and Harry agreed because sure, that makes sense.

So Louis and Harry are best friends, it’s just how it is.

And when Louis’s mum brings him over, she also brings Louis’s sisters, Lottie and Fizzy. They’re practically _babies_ but sometimes Harry and Louis still let them play their games. Because they’re charitable. And also because Louis’s mum tells Louis that if he can’t play nice he can go sulk at home.

The thing is, is Harry is two weeks younger than Louis. And they’re best friends who share everything ever, so the first time Louis does accidental magic (in the form of setting his curtains on fire), the first person he tells is Harry. And the second time Louis does accidental magic (in the form of making Lottie levitate above the kitchen table after she stole his cupcake), the first person he tells is Harry. And so it goes. And Harry loves it when Louis runs to him and tells him these things, he loves it when he’s sitting at the breakfast table munching toast and there’s a smattering of knocks at the door because Louis just _has_ to tell Harry he turned his cat’s tail blue, because there’s nothing better than being the first one someone runs to tell something to, and this is _Louis_ , but—

Well. It would be really nice if Harry ever had something to tell Louis back.

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? Everyone his own age that Harry knows has done some sort of accidental magic. Even Liam and Niall, the kids from the maths study group that Harry attends two days a week, have done _something._ Niall blew up the fish bowl. Liam melted a whole drawer of spoons. They giggled over it and then asked Harry what _he’d_ done lately and Harry had lied - _blatantly_ lied - and said something about turning his shoes different colours.

It’s just that, well, Harry hasn’t _done_ any accidental magic. And he’s terribly embarrassed and a little worried.

He wonders sometimes, after his parents have come in to say goodnight and left again, whether that’s why his original parents left him. Maybe he’s not magic at all. Maybe they could _tell._ He hopes and prays that one day he’ll wake up and find that he’s floating, or that the next time someone makes him angry he’ll be able to set the rug on fire. Something, _anything_ that would show him that he’s not just another magic-less muggle.

(He worries what will happen to him if he is).

But his eleventh birthday is coming up. And with it, his future will be sealed one way or the other with the arrival (or lack thereof) of his letter from Hogwarts. Every magical child gets one when they reach the age of eleven, and Harry has been counting down the days, hoping and praying, for _years._ Everything will be okay as long as he gets into Hogwarts.

—

When Louis gets his letter, it’s while he’s eating a breakfast of orange juice and cereal. Harry knows this, because he is eating breakfast himself (milk, toast, and eggs) when Louis comes banging on the door, shouting excitedly to be let in.

Harry jumps up and runs over to open the door (much to his mum’s chagrin as he spills a fair amount of his runny eggs on the table), wrenching it open to reveal Louis, one hand tight around a half-empty cup of orange juice and one hand clutching the box of Cocoa Pops.

“I got my letter!” he yells excitedly, raising his hands and spilling orange juice. “I’m going to Hogwarts, Harry!”

Of course, there was never any doubt in Harry’s mind that Louis would be going to Hogwarts. Still, it’s the principle of the thing. “Yay!” he shouts. “Happy birthday!”

“Thanks!” Louis says, then thrusts his hand with the box of Coco Pops forward. “See, look-” He stops himself and looks at the box he’s holding. “That’s not my letter.”

“No, that’s Coco Pops,” Harry says, beginning to giggle.

“Hang on,” Louis says. “I’ll just go back and grab my letter and-”

 _“And you’ll sit down and finish your breakfast,”_ yells Louis’s mum from downstairs. _“And you can tell Harry all about it later.”_

Louis looks at Harry and grins, his whole face scrunching up. Harry laughs at him. It’s Christmas Eve and there are lights and decorations everywhere and yet Louis’s letter is still the most important thing to Harry that day.

He watches Louis go back down the stairs and feels that little squirming bit of fear in the pit of his stomach. He tries to cover it with that soft, fluffy hope that used to come so easy to him. His mum and dad have never doubted that he would get into Hogwarts. Surely this time next year they’ll both be home celebrating their first winter holidays as Hogwarts students.

Right?

—

It’s January 14th, the day after his birthday, and Harry absolutely refuses to come out of his room.

He refuses to get out of his bed.

He refuses to get out from under the blanket he’s huddled beneath. He will never leave this spot again. He will grow moss like the forest and his hair will grow long and get curlier and people will say, “Oh, that’s Harry. The boy who didn’t go to Hogwarts.”

He sniffs, rubbing at his eyes and wishing for the ground to swallow him whole. Louis’s just gotten his letter and he’s going to go to Hogwarts and Harry is going to sit here and be a- a  _ squib _ and he’s probably going to have to leave his home because he can’t live with wizards and his parents are going to leave him, and— 

“Hazza, open up!”

Furiously wiping at his face as the tears drip over his nose and onto his pillow, Harry squeezes his eyes shut. “Go away!” he shouts, voice hoarse. He doesn’t want Louis to see him like this. Louis is a wizard. They’re not going to be best friends anymore after this.

“No!” Louis shouts from the other side of the door, pounding on it now. “Open up or I’ll get your mum to open it for me!”

“No!” Harry shouts, voice thick, and the next thing he knows there’s a shattering _bam_ as his bedroom door is blown inward.

“That’s not _fair-”_ Harry shrieks, but clearly Louis doesn’t care about _fair_ because he’s already climbing onto Harry’s bed and under the covers with him.

“Go away,” Harry croaks, even though he’d really rather Louis didn’t.

“Won’t,” says Louis, and the next thing Harry knows Louis has wrapped himself around Harry’s middle, and Harry is terribly embarrassed because he’s rather sure Louis’s arm is resting on the wet patch from Harry’s tears.

“This is what I do to my sisters when they’re having a bad day,” Louis says. “Only they’re a bit smaller than you.”

Harry sniffles and pushes his face back into his mattress. “It’s not fair,” he mumbles, completely unintelligibly.

“What’s not fair?” Louis asks. “Are you finally going to tell me what’s going on? Because best friends don’t keep secrets from each other, and I’m pretty sure we’re best friends.”

Harry doesn’t think Louis will still want to be best friends after this. It’s actually a lot of the reason he hasn’t told him. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“It’s fine,” Louis says, dismissively even as he continues to wrap himself tight like a spider monkey around Harry. “Long as you tell me now, I won’t revoke our official best friends card.”

Harry turns his head away from Louis so that his face isn’t pressed into the mattress and he can breathe properly. “I didn’t-” he starts, but has to stop, tears filling his eyes again. “I- I didn’t get- into—”

“What?” asks Louis, because he’s patient but he’s also only eleven. “You didn’t get everything you wanted for your birthday? Because I never do, you know.”

“N-no,” Harry sobs. “I- didn’t— I’m not going t-to Hogwarts!”

Louis doesn’t respond, and Harry’s not looking in his direction - not that he could see that well at this moment anyway - so he figures any minute now Louis will realise what Harry’s said and up and leave him.

Except - “Is that all?”

Harry tries to turn his head, but Louis wraps his limbs around Harry tighter so Harry can’t turn round to look at him. “What do y-you mean _is that all?”_

“I mean,” Louis says, “My mum didn’t go to Hogwarts and she’s not all shook up about it!”

“But your mum went to that blue school! Beauxbatons!” Harry struggles in Louis’s hold until he loosens enough for Harry to flip around and see him face to face. “I’m not going to _any_ wizard school, Louis! I’m not a- a wizard! I can’t do magic!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Louis says, matter-of-factly.

“No it’s not!” Harry kicks out his feet in frustration, accidentally making contact with Louis’s shin. “I’ve never done magic, Lou! You’ve never seen me do accidental magic because I can’t _do_ magic! For all I know, my parents are probably muggles!”

“Your parents are _not_ muggles!” Louis says, before correcting himself. “Or. They could have been. But even if they are, you aren’t! You do accidental magic all the _time!”_

“No I _don’t,”_ says Harry, growing frustrated. “Name one time!”

“Last week,” says Louis. “When Fizzy was upset because she fell and skinned her knee! As soon as you came up and gave her a plaster, the whole thing healed up and disappeared!”

“That’s what plasters are supposed to do,” Harry mutters.

“No you dummy, before she even put the bandage on! Or like, when we were all here for Christmas and Lottie started crying because you were all out of Christmas pudding, even though mum _told_ her that we had already eaten ours and weren’t supposed to ask for more, but then you went into the kitchen and there was a whole new bowl? That was you.”

“I think that was my mum,” Harry says, rubbing a hand over his face to dry his eyes. “And either way it doesn’t matter! My birthday was yesterday! Hogwarts didn’t send me a letter like they should have if I’m a wizard!”

Louis frowns. “Come on,” he says, scooching backward and extricating himself from Harry’s fortress of sadness (the bed). “We’re going to go ask someone who _really_ knows.”

“Who?” asks Harry, peeking out from under the blanket. He doesn’t want to leave his bed. Ever.

“The only person who can help us,” Louis says, grabbing Harry’s wrist and hauling him off of his bed. Harry keeps hold of his blanket, wrapping it around himself.

It turns out Louis means Harry’s mum, who has been waiting outside of Harry’s since Louis arrived.

“Oh Harry,” she says when she sees him coming out of his room with the fluffy, if damp, blanket wrapped around himself. “Come here, love.”

She wraps him in a hug and Harry starts crying again because his _mum_ is a witch and _she_ certainly isn’t going to want a squib for a child.

“Oh Harry,” says his mum again. “I didn’t realise you thought all that.”

Harry sniffles.

“Harry, my darling, you’ve done so much accidental magic. You can’t tell me you’ve not noticed any of it?”

“No I haven’t,” Harry sniffs, leaning back and looking at his mum with confusion. “I’ve _never_ done magic.”

“Yes you have!” Louis points out from behind him.

“You _absolutely_ have,” his mum reassures. “Every time you walk into the kitchen in the morning, Harry. Those flowers on the windowsill? Those have been trying to die for months, but every time you come in they turn from brown and crinkly to blue and perky.”

“I thought those flowers were fake,” Harry says with a frown.”

“And remember that power outage last month? The one that happened right when you walked in on your dad and I watching that scary movie?”

Harry remembers it very well, it had scared him much worse than the movie had.

“Harry, you’ve been doing accidental magic for over a year, I think you just haven’t been looking in the right places to see it.”

“But- but then _why,_ ” asks Harry plaintively. _“Why_ don’t I have a- a Hogwarts letter?”

“Maybe it’s because you’re adopted!” Louis calls helpfully from behind them. “And your letter just went to your old house first!”

Harry makes a face at that, but his mum laughs. “He’s half right,” she says. “You know the story of how we found you,” she says.

“Of course I do,” Harry says impatiently.

“Well, that day was in April, and we took you right to the healers, but even they weren’t sure exactly when you were born. Hogwarts, on the other hand, uses a very ancient magic to send all of their letters to the right place at the right time. There’s a very good chance the letter will appear when you least expect it. But don’t give up hope, okay?” She pecks him on the cheek, then the nose. “I can’t believe you were keeping all this inside. No wonder you were such a grump for your birthday.”

Harry looks guiltily at the ground, although he doesn’t disentangle himself from his mum’s arms.

“Mrs. Cox?” asks Louis, standing rather awkwardly next to them. “Since I’m here, can I stay for breakfast?”

—

Louis does stay for breakfast.

Louis spends all of that breakfast teasing Harry.

“This means I’m even older than you than we thought,” he says with a piece of bacon in his mouth.

“Shut up,” says Harry.

“Aww, you’re practically a _baby,”_ says Louis. “Like my _sisters.”_

“Go away,” says Harry.

“We’re gonna have to wait to figure out how much younger you are,” says Louis.

“I’m still taller,” points out Harry, and that gets him a piece of toast to the face.

—

It occurs to Harry, once or twice, that maybe this is a distraction technique. Still, it seems like every day when they see each other, there’s just a moment where Louis waits to see if Harry will tell him his letter has arrived.

Harry still isn’t… _entirely_ convinced that he’s a wizard. He hasn’t blown anything up, and that magic everyone else has said he does is just so, well, small and quiet. But he tries to do what Louis says (which is really what Louis’s mum says) which is to breathe slowly and tell himself that, in the words of one of the greatest researches of all time, _‘worry means you suffer twice.’_

Two weeks later, when the owl arrives with the morning paper, there’s a smaller, fledgling owl with it. The morning paper is dropped neatly beside Harry’s dad’s tea, and the larger owl takes off again. The smaller owl hops in the window, hops about, spots Harry, and makes a terrifyingly low trip through the air straight into his curls.

Harry shrieks as a letter hits him in the fact. He might be shrieking because there is an owl in his hair, or he might be shrieking because he recognizes that seal, but at this moment he’s not thinking clearly enough to discern for sure.

He jumps up immediately and, even as his parents protest, races for the door. Throwing it open, he bolts down the stairs to the floor below and pounds on the door.

“Louis!” Harry shouts. “Louis! I need to- Lou! Open up!”

Louis does not open the door, instead his sister Lottie does. She stares up at him with wide eyes and hastily steps aside. Harry rushes through the flat to their dining room where Louis, Fizzy, his dad, and his heavily pregnant mum are.

 _“Louis!”_  Harry says, stopping for only a moment to catch his breath.

“Harry!” Louis says, jumping up. “What’s—”

“I got a _letter!”_ Harry shouts, the grin on his face so wide it might split in two. He holds up his hand only to find that all he is holding is a fork. “No, I mean-” he reaches up and finds the owl still tangled in his curls, hooting sorrowfully, but the letter has dropped off of it’s leg at some point in the journey downstairs.

“Harry,” says Louis. “That’s an owl.”

“Yes it is,” Harry says, deciding to leave the poor owl be. “But you know what, Louis?

“It’s a _Hogwarts owl.”_

— — —

On September 1st, Harry and Louis board the Hogwarts Express.

They have done this for the last six years. This will be their last year at Hogwarts together, and as they make their way onto the train, a year’s worth of luggage in tow, Louis reaches out a hand and intertwines his fingers with Harry’s.

Harry smiles, and feels that soft and fluffy thing called hope sit comfortably in his stomach. After all, Louis had promised him a surprise for when they got to the castle. He loves surprising Harry, just like that day all those years ago when Harry learned that his real birthday was February 1st, and that he really was going to Hogwarts, and Louis immediately pulled out a slightly smashed, stale cupcake that he had been waiting to surprise Harry with. Because even when Harry didn’t have hope, Louis had it for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! The fic post is [here!](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com/post/177815140864/this-soft-and-fluffy-thing-called)


End file.
